We were at a buffet brunch yesterday. There was a time in the 90s when you couldn’t escape to a buffet brunch offering on any a Sunday. Then brunches fizzled. The local “family dining” restaurant option continued the buffet offering. It gave them something to do with the salad bar setup that would have otherwise gone untouched. Otherwise, you couldn’t buy an egg anywhere outside a grocery store after 11:00 for all the bacon you brought home last week. Then McDonald’s said breakfast is good all day and soon the Sunday brunch was back. Sort of.

About 6 years ago brunches reappeared on the local high end dining scene as carefully selected menu selections. You could purchase Eggs Benedict and a fruit cup but your $17.99 was going to get you just that. A poached egg and some pre-cut melon. Still, it was another option for an after church repast.

Yesterday we discovered the return of the all you can eat Sunday Brunch. Omelets to order, sausages, baked fish, donuts, and a Caesar salad all on one plate! Permission to stuff your face with as much as you want for as long as you want (up to 2pm) in exchange for one twenty dollar bill. Only in America! (Actually I’m assuming that. I haven’t ever had a weekend, mid-morning buffet in another country but then my international travel is somewhat limited.)

While I was munching away at my bacon topped salmon cake I allowed my mind to do what it does best when dining with my family. Wander. And it was off and running.

The word “brunch” is one of the most recognizable portmanteau, the words breakfast and lunch combined into a new, accepted contraction. We do this all the time with English. Smog. Dumbfound. Modem. Portmanteau itself is a portmanteau, a small case used to carry outwear. (porter = carry, manteau = cape)

At buffet brunches every serving vessel or station is clearly marked with their, sometimes quite disparate, contents. Baked Salmon/Chicken Parmesan. Fresh Fruits/Baked Desserts. Green Beans Almondine/Potatoes au Gratin. And the ever popular Omelet and Carving Station. How much easier it would be to read and recognize these offerings, while minimizing decision making and thus maximizing eating time, if one didn’t have to read and digest all those letters? But why stop at just renaming the stations when we can reinvent the very offering. And so I began devising the list of Edible Portmanteau.

Hash Brown Potatoes and Pancakes become Hashcakes, a light and fluffy griddle cooked cake made of shredded potatoes and onions served with maple syrup and applesauce. Bourbon Glazed Salmon and Chicken Veronique morph into Salmonique, a patty of ground fish and poultry of indeterminate origin covered with a sauce of orange marmalade, green grapes, and Jim Beam. The ever popular omelet and carving station relieves the low man on the cooks totem pole assigned there from running end to end trying to keep omelets from over cooking while slicing slabs of rare roast beef, redirecting his or her energy into scrambled eggs cooked with spinach, mushroom, horse radish and Steak’Ums at the new Carvlet Station.

I don’t know about you but I think I’m on to something here. I have to go make some calls. This could be the start of the newest breakfast offering since the McGriddle. The Sunday Brunch Buffet, or as I like to call it, The SubRay!